At about that time in 2002, The Staff was also doing a brief newsletter, The Aventuras Sunrise, for the small community of condominium owners at Aventuras Akumal.

So, The Akumalian is a natural progression and outgrowth of The Akumal Sun Times and The Aventuras Sunrise, but it has a much broader audience, and it is  on the Internet

Subscription
    Subscription to The Akumalian is FREE to everyone, just by going to the Subscribe dialogue box above.  The Subscription is being used to send subscribers an e-mail, informing them that a new issue is available on this web site.  The e-mail also allows Subscribers to unsubscribe.

Timetable
    Over the years, there had been no definitive date for distributing The Akumalian.  Many months the actual distribution was dependent on some event (holiday, full moon, International Space Station sighting, etc.), and there have been months, like in the Fall of 2006, when there have been two issues of The Akumalian.  But now, there is a publication date set for the first of each month, and you can look for the latest issue on the 1st, without receiving the e-mail notice.

Content
The content of The Akumalian is all up to the whim of the Owner /Author/ Writer/ Editor/ Publisher/ Distributor/The Staff, but the focus starts and ends with the extended Akumal community.  Two consistent sections that have been in all of the recent issues are FULL MOON  and COMINGS & GOINGS.  The latter is a very important part of The Akumalian, because it highlights the people who are visiting Akumal, or those residents who are leaving for a vacation.

Akumal History
Akumal means the place of the turtle, and used to be a seaport and trading center of the Maya.  In 1511, a Spanish Galleon shipwrecked off the shore of Akumal.  Seventeen of the sailors were washed up on the beach, where the Mayans captured them and made them slaves.

 Fifteen died. The two survivors were Geronimo De Aguilar, who was a friar and warrior, and Gonzalo Guerrero.  It was Guerrero who would have a lasting impact on the Akumal area culture.

 Gonzalo Guerrero wound up marrying the Mayan princess Zazi and fathered the first mestizos, so called white Indian.  He went on to teach the Maya new war techniques they would later use in their fight against Spaniards.

 The Spanish conqueror Hernan Cortes arrived in Cozumel and heard about the ship wreck and two survivors in Akumal.  He sent emissaries to look for them.  The search party located the two, and Geronimo de Aguilar was returned to Cortes' camp.  Later, the rescued sailor would become the first translator and guide in the conquest of Mexico.

 Gonzalo Guerrero adapted to his life with the Maya. As he told the emissaries he was no longer a Spaniard; he was Mayan.  He stayed in Akumal with his wife and three children until he died in 1536.  Today, a statue of Gonzalo Guerrero stands at the entrance to Akumal, just after the arch.

That ship wreck in 1511 is not to be confused with the wreck of El Matancero, which is south of Akumal, just off the coast of Bahia Principe.

 Just before dawn, on February 22, 1741, the lookout aboard El Matancero, a Spanish merchant ship sailing near the Caribbean coast of the Yucatan, yelled in near panic, the most dreaded warning possible, “Rompientes! (breakers!).”  Crew members on the weather deck raced to the lee side of the ship and stared in disbelief at the ominous form of the surf, with its turbulent foam taking on a ghostly appearance in the wan light of the crescent moon.  Even before the more experienced seamen among the ships complement of nearly seventy men could respond to the alarm with course-altering ship saving actions, El Matancero, with a sickening crunch and a violent lurch that toppled sleeping sailors out of their hammocks, ran aground on one of the countless coral reefs that make the Caribbean shores of Mexico and Central America one of the most treacherous coastlines in the world for sailing vessels.

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